Vendetta Nation (Enigma Black Trilogy #2) (3 page)

“I’m sorry, Ian.” I felt my arm instinctively wrap around his back, holding him as though it were second nature.

“Don’t go all soft on me,” he said. “I don’t need you falling for me and stealing shirts out of my closet, too.” I hastily removed my arm, elbowing him in the process. “Cheese,” he announced in retaliation before I could protest. The camera flashed, blinding me, leaving residual black dots hovering in my eyes well after the picture had been taken.

“That antique still works?” I stood up, rubbing my eyes to rid myself of the offending ocular disturbance.

“Of course it still works.” Ian’s voice held a twinge of contempt. “Most of the photographs in my apartment were taken with this beauty. You need to show some respect for your elders.”

I rolled my eyes, shaking my head as I left both the room and Ian to his memories.

Why I saved Blake’s shirt from certain demise was an answer even I didn’t know. But I had, and as I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, I found myself unable to release it from my grasp. My feelings for Blake had not extended beyond a friendship, albeit a deep friendship. Still, this one inanimate object, much like Ian with his father’s camera, had me in its complete control. With the tip of my finger, I traced the outline of the top button, making hundreds of laps around its circumference as though in a trance.

Realizing the unhealthy nature of my actions, I threw the shirt in a feeble attempt at freeing myself from its hold on me just as another blast of cologne socked me in the nose. The memories, both the pleasant and the painful, flooded instantaneously back into my thoughts, causing me to succumb to them, and I retrieved the shirt from the foot of the bed almost as soon as it landed there. Clutching the cotton fabric tightly to my chest, I laid in bed and sobbed.

*****

Marshall Leitner stood before the crowd, delivering his usual Wednesday night oration. His boisterousness infused the attendees, many of whom were already basking in the glow of their own nervous excitement. Tonight, their leader’s infinite energy bordered on being nearly enough for them to ignore the distraction of the stifling heat baking them within the cabin’s bedraggled walls. From the combination of body heat, the fire roaring in the archaic fireplace, and the numerous computer monitors set up around the room, which allowed members from other parts of the country to gain access to their meetings, it was as though they’d been thrown into a slow cooker.

A plan had been laid out. The date, the time, and, most likely, the hour of their deaths was being set into motion. No one betrayed President Brooks without facing repercussions. All of the unexplained disappearances of those who’d tried in the past were evidence enough of that. But regardless of the consequences, soon Washington, D.C. would be taken by storm, forcing the rest of the country to stand up and take notice of the injustices being carried out right under their noses. Yes, Marshall Leitner was invigorated. For today, his secret liaison would be joining their ever-expanding group.

In the middle of the meeting, Marshall found himself interrupted by a hesitant knock at the cabin’s wooden door. A knowing smile crept across his face in sync with the looks of hesitation spreading throughout the rest of the cabin. Roll had been taken, all were accounted for, no new membership requests were being presented for consideration. A visitor at this hour was unexpected and cause for concern.

Marshall nodded at Tagitt Buckley, their inch-shy-of-seven-foot guardsman, to open the door and allow the stranger entry. Across the cabin, tensions mounted as the hooded figure, whose features were none too discernible, kept his head down towards the floor as he cautiously walked through the crowd without so much as a glance in anyone but Marshall’s direction. Slight relief spread through the atmosphere of the cabin when their leader greeted the man as one would a friend whose absence had been particularly prolonged. After brief pleasantries, Marshall turned to face the crowd.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he announced, “what we have here is our mastermind. The person who has quite literally stuck his neck out to make all of this possible. He’s my right-hand man, and the eyes and ears to every pertinent piece of information we’ve received thus far, and shall continue to receive until we’ve served our purpose.”

Applause bounced off the wooden walls of the cabin, creating an impromptu source of airflow, which saturated the stagnant air. Marshall motioned for the mystery man to join him at the podium where they locked eyes, nodded, and, with the removal of his hood, the man revealed his identity to stunned gasps.

“What the hell is this!” Charlie Withers, a weathered Army vet, proclaimed in outrage, standing on fatigued, yet miraculously sturdy, legs victimized by the early stages of Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

“Calm down, Charlie, calm—”

“Don’t admonish him, he’s absolutely right to question this,” Bruce Vaupel, a man only slightly younger than Charlie, interrupted. “Have you gone mad, Marshall? This is nothing short of insanity. This man is the enemy.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Vaupel,” Marshall interceded, “I’ve got my wits about me and plan to keep it that way. I’m assuming you’ve all heard the saying ‘keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.’ Well, that’s exactly what’s going on here, but I’ll go ahead and allow Mr. Delaney to convince you of that.”

Senator Jeremiah Delaney took the podium and cleared his throat, a look of contemplation spread across his refreshingly sincere visage. “I know you don’t trust me,” he began, greeted by a slew of ‘you’ve got that right.’ “You have every right not to trust me. Hell, you have every right not to trust anyone ever again. When Carver and I first began working together, I fell in love with his vision. He had a vision for the world—a vision of economic prosperity; a vision of uniformity. I was proud to be a part of his Presidency.” He paused to gather his thoughts, glancing at the consternated stares scattered about the room. “Even after the initial attacks, I was proud to be a part of the command of such a revolutionary thinker and brilliant leader. Like you, I was duped into falling in love with an illusion. And now, like you, I’m seeking a way to right the wrong that has been done to our country.”

“Somehow, I’m not convinced,” a woman’s voice rang out, met with concurrence across the room. Marshall shook his head, agitated.

“I don’t expect you to join my fan club now, if ever,” Jeremiah countered. “But I promise you, on my life, I want exactly the same things you do. Carver is out of control, and he must be brought down. This devastation has got to end. My only regret is that I won’t be partaking in the takedown myself.”

“Oh, but you are partaking, my friend,” Marshall interceded, speaking directly to the group. “Senator Delaney here is far too modest to admit this, but the information he’s provided has been crucial in the instrumentality of our impending revolution.”

Jeremiah nodded, addressing the crowd. “In just a few short weeks, there will be a very public, very televised soiree at Potomac Park. Carver will be there. His presidency depends upon it. Also present will be those superheroes everyone seems entranced with. You see, public opinion of Carver is dwindling in direct correlation to their realization of what’s transpired this last decade. That superhero duo, or whatever they are, is one of last threads holding his presidency together.” He looked back up at the crowd, noticing that he possessed their undivided attention for the first time since he began speaking.

“Not surprisingly,” he began again, “Brooks will be parading his super duo by his side as though their very creation depended solely upon him. The sad part is that despite the outright transparency of his actions, the people will buy it, along with whatever else Carver wants to sell them because of their misguided faith in those super humans, the very duo whose strings unknowingly belong to Carver. He’s the ultimate puppeteer. Like our country, they’ll be used for his own devices, and he’ll be bought the time he needs. Time we can’t afford. During the rally is when you need to strike. Security around Washington, D.C. will be tight, but they’ll be distracted, with their concentration focused on the attendees at the rally. Your best bet is to surround the park or create a barricade of some sort. You’ll need to act quickly. Your aim will need to be precise because you know theirs will be.”

“What about those super schmucks?” A man’s voice came from one of the speakers affixed to the monitor displayed for the Texas unit. “How are we going to get through them?”

“No one ever said there wouldn’t be fatalities,” Marshall answered.

“But they aren’t invincible,” Jeremiah added. “They’re strong, they’re fast, and they know what they’re doing, but they can be brought down. In fact, quite a few of them have been already. Our country has just been kept in the dark about it.”

“All right,” Marshall regained control of the podium. “You know the plan, you know the consequences, and you know the identity of our informant. If there’re any of you who want to back out now, who want to reintegrate back into Brooks’s dystopia, I suggest you leave now.”

A sickening thud, followed by a grotesque moan, emanated from behind me as Ian was slammed into a brick wall. Red dust rained down on him from above, covering his suit, giving it a bloody aura. We found ourselves surrounded, battling for our virtual lives in one of Cameron’s more sadistic simulations. Above us, an onyx sky, illuminated by a scarlet sun-moon hybrid reigned over a landscape riddled with hollowed-out brick structures. Day cycled into night every few minutes, throwing us from a sweltering heat into an arctic blast and back again like human boomerangs.

The inhabitants of Cameron’s nightmarish world were no less nightmarish. Men, women, and children, ravaged by the effects of war, trudged through the rubble, their soulless eyes boring holes into our own. Who the enemy was or wasn’t was lost in their emaciated forms, and was only revealed by an unexpected boot to one of our guts or some other programmed attack upon us.

Ian picked himself up from the ground and surveyed his attacker, a young boy no older than seven or eight. “This is seriously messed up, Cameron,” he groaned.

The brick-wielding boy lunged at Ian, who darted out of the way, narrowly avoiding him. Around us, more and more of the world’s residents began to turn, walking toward us at labored paces. If we didn’t act quickly, we would be overtaken and would most likely fail the simulation, a prospect that didn’t set well with me. I was in no mood to repeat this scenario for the fourth time today. With a sigh, I kicked the wall, collapsing it, causing a shower of bricks to bury the boy, ending one of our problems.

“Jeez, I thought women were supposed to have some innate maternal instinct,” Ian said.

“I think that comes with having your own children and not with some homicidal pixelation masquerading as a child. Besides, his red hair reminded me of Cameron and, well, can you blame me there?”

“Don’t piss off the simulation designer. You won’t appreciate the consequences the next time around,” Cameron’s voice came over my ear bud loud and clear.

“Oh, Cam, you know it’s all in good fun,” I responded.

“Yeah, I always knew you wanted me.”

Ian rolled his eyes, a sight barely visible from behind the mask that covered his face. “What’s the game plan?” he asked, surveying our impending threat.

“Don’t die,” I replied.

“Sounds like a real winner.”

“Isn’t it, though?” The angry mob drew nearer, their features growing more discernible. From the sweat trickling down their brows, to the buttons sewn on their tattered clothing, and the intricate strands of their hair, they could have been mistaken for the living had their bodies remained solid. Instead, flickers intermittently encompassed an arm, leg, or abdominal cavity, breaking their solid forms apart. It was a sign of too much data having been inputted into a program with too little memory to support it; a glitch, in a way. A glitch that not even Cameron could have foreseen as being beneficial to his program and his army of maniacal beings. For it was because of this glitch that each punch and kick delivered by Ian and I were rendered useless as our target flickered away from existence. It was also largely the reason for it being our fourth attempt at completing this particular simulation. “Well,” I surmised, “in every other attempt we’ve made so far, we were separated. Let’s stick together on this one. That way, if one of them fades away, there will be one of us there as back-up to take them out when they reappear.”

Ian nodded. “Agreed. Nothing like a little forced teamwork to get the job done.”

“Let’s get this show on the road, then,” I said as the beings came within only a matter of feet from us. “I want to get the heck out of here at a decent time tonight. I’ll go first, you follow behind me. Chances are, you’re going to have a lot of cleaning up to do.”

“Always taking care of your dirty work,” he laughed, readying himself for our attack.

“It’s now or never. Let’s do this.” I ran full-tilt at our assailants, making contact with the first entity with the heel of my boot, throwing him against a wall several yards away. “One down, too many more to go.” Behind me, I felt one of the beings—a male—jump on my back. He kicked me in the ribs with his steel-toed boots. “Agh!” I screamed in pain before Ian managed to rip him off me, firmly dispatching him in the process. “Curse you, Cameron!” I screamed, gripping my side.